


Best Best Friends

by cdocks



Category: Glee
Genre: Best Friends, Friendship, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:39:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cdocks/pseuds/cdocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because she's his hero, and he doesn't believe in God, but he believes in her. ~ Traces the friendship of Mercedes Jones and Kurt Hummel, from Kindergarten to Sophomore Year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Best Friends

 

It’s the fourth day of Ms. Dallaire’s Creative Montessori Kindergarten class of 2000 when Kurt Hummel reaches out and pats Mercedes Jones’s hair. This is because it’s soft and fluffy and twisted up in two puffs on top of her head and the hair ties she’s wearing have been a different color every single day and he just wants to _touch._

But she whips her head around and juts out her chin and fixes him with a steady stare that reminds him of his daddy when he’s fixing a carburetor and she informs him that if he touches her hair again without asking she will _tell on him._

Kurt’s resolution to stay aloof and not speak to Mercedes Jones ever again melts away when she shows up on the fifth day wearing sparkly purple overalls. This time he asks permission before patting the glittery fabric, and she compliments his shiny leather shoes and they’re building a Lego palace together before snacktime. And even though Mercedes likes green grapes and Kurt likes purple, they both hate Fig Newtons and they both love celery sticks and it’s as easy as that to become best friends.

~

“Private schools smell like old milk and crayons and I miss you,” is how Kurt starts his first letter to Mercedes after starting first grade across town.

“Public school made my light-up sneakers dirty and I miss you too,” is how Mercedes ends hers.

And even though they’re both making new friends (Kurt’s last until they find out he does ballet, Mercedes loses a couple when she declares she doesn’t like the fairy Barbies, she likes the mermaid ones) they make sure to write at least one letter every week or so, and that’s enough to help them stay best friends.

~

After the tiara incident halfway through second grade, Kurt ends up back in Lima Elementary. And even though he can now make his own decisions about what shirt goes best with his black slacks, he sits alone at lunch and curls his fingers together underneath the table until his knuckles go white and his head buzzes with multisyllabic words like _chemotherapy_ and _malignant_ and _Mr-and-Mrs-Hummel-we’re-so-sorry._

Until all of a sudden there are six – he counts them, six – celery sticks cascading onto his tray and she’s traded in the overalls for a pair of bedazzled jeans and her hair is in four puffs today and Kurt doesn’t want to touch it, he just wants to hug her and never ever let go, especially when she grins and says, “You still like these, right?”

For the rest of the year they’re inseparable, meeting up a lunch  and at recess, conquering the jungle gym and the swingset and Kurt talks about dance class and _The Sound of Music_ and Mercedes talks about church choir and Destiny’s Child. 

Often he asks her about heaven and she tells him everything she knows, over and over again, because it seems to help him not be so sad. Kurt's dad has stopped praying now, but Mercedes still does. It doesn't really matter if anyone's listening or not, Kurt decides.

~

Midway through third grade, Kurt stops asking about heaven. In fact, Kurt stops talking altogether, except to his Power Rangers and his mommy and Mercedes. 

Since Mercedes is the only one who can talk back to him, she's the only one he listens to now. When it's time to go outside, he won't go without her next to him. At lunchtime he doesn't line up until she grabs his hand and tugs him along. On the playground he doesn't listen to anyone calling him names or teasing him, because Mercedes is telling him to ignore them, and Mercedes is climbing to the tippy-top of the jungle gym and Mercedes knows all the words to  _Bills, Bills, Bills_ , and Kurt thinks if God is still listening, He'll have to hear this girl sing.

Two weeks from summer vacation, there's a late May thunderstorm and the jungle gym is slippery and Mercedes slips and falls. Her wrist is broken and she cries and cries and cries and Kurt refuses to leave her side and he kicks the school nurse in the shin when she tries to pry him away. But then there's a bright purple cast and Kurt can practice his signature as many times as he wants, and when he overhears his dad talking about homeschooling he turns and speaks for the first time in almost two months and says if he can't go to school with Mercedes, he's going to go live in a cave and be a kermit.

He means hermit and Mercedes giggles at him.

~

In the summer vacation between fourth and fifth grade, Kurt can finally ride a bike and Mercedes praises the Lord for small favors. He doesn't believe in God anymore, but he believes in Mercedes and she has streamers on her bike handles too and that makes him feel brave enough to attempt the big big hill by the middle school.

This turns out to be a bad idea, because there's a reason most kids stay away from there, and the reason is an uneven bit of pavement that blows out Mercedes's front tire, and the other reason is a prickle bush that Kurt careens headfirst into while he's watching the tire explode and the main reason is neither of them are going to make it to Hollywood if they're permanently facial disfigured, as Kurt wails from somewhere deep inside the bush.

But Mercedes is Superman and Wonder Woman and Belle (the bravest of all princesses) wrapped into one, and she braves the prickles to pry Kurt free and he calls her his own personal hero, only half-kidding. His dad is going to lecture and her mom is going to gasp and they're both going to need stitches, but somewhere at the end of that there's sodas and a movie marathon and Mercedes teasing him gently about how he screams when there are prickles in his socks.

~

Just before middle school starts, Mercedes's dad opens his own practice across town and different classes was hard enough, but different schools might as well be the end of the world. Kurt is round-cheeked and teary-eyed when he hugs her goodbye, and Mercedes has started straightening her hair and is a good foot shorter than him, so she hides her face in his chest. They both promise to be best friends forever and ever and ever.

Forever is too long when you're trying not to stare at the basketball team in the locker room and when you talk about your dreams of being a recording artist and everyone,  _everyone_ laughs at you. So it's nobody's fault when the e-mails and text messages get fewer and fewer, because friends grow apart sometimes, that's just the way it is, even best friends do.

~

It's sophomore year when Kurt Hummel writes his name on a sign-up sheet and he's trying so hard to be subtle about it that he doesn't notice his name's under Mercedes Jones's. 

And it isn't until he's standing in the wings and waiting for his turn to audition that he hears her, hears R-E-S-P-E-C-T and the way her voice soars it's way up to a heaven he doesn't believe in, and he  _remembers_.

She's waiting for him when he gets offstage. He knew she would be.

"You've got  _range_ , boy." A pause, awkwardness from so many years warring with the time he kissed her cheek and told her she was his hero, up on that slippery jungle gym so long ago.

Then -- "I could go for a smoothie."

"Me too."

And it's as easy as that.


End file.
